


Cobalt Memories

by MaggieMaybe160



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Canon Compliant, Castiel (Supernatural)'s Trenchcoat, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Character Death In Dream, Dream Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s07e13 The Slice Girls, Episode: s07e17 The Born-Again Identity, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Masturbation, Masturbation in Bathroom, Memories, Mutual Pining, POV Castiel (Supernatural), Pining, Recovered Memories, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:20:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaggieMaybe160/pseuds/MaggieMaybe160
Summary: When Emmanuel dreams of Dean at the Cobalt Room, he doesn't expect his entire life to change. But change it does when only a few months later, Dean is on his doorstep needing help for his brother, Sam.





	1. The Cobalt Room

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my wonderful alphas/betas [nickelkeep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickelkeep) and [opal_galaxies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opal_galaxies)

Bright blue, clear and strong, illumination spilled out, claiming everything in the night as its own. It is the kind of blue one might guess an angel’s grace could be made of. If angels were real, that is. The words that are shining spelled out “The Cobalt Room.” Sitting at a table alone is a man. His drink is stiff and straight. Everything about him is attractive. His hair, short and styled, looks soft enough to rake one’s fingers through. His eyes, a tantalizing green, are the kind of eyes that one might drown in as they come to climax. His tie is something to grab hold of, dragging him closer for another kiss, just to be discarded on the floor of a bedroom somewhere. He is also being joined by a woman. 

Jealousy churns as the two flirt. Her eyes drink him in more steadily than her fruity cocktail with the cherries dipping into the alcohol. No, she isn’t there to drink. 

“Well, look at you.” The words drip off of her tongue as she salivates over her prey. 

“Yeah, look at me.” He doesn’t bother looking up at her. He’s sad, but she doesn’t see or hear it. When he does look up at her again, she’s won. She’s got him by that tie as she pulls him from his seat in the Cobalt Room through the door of her house. 

She makes quick work of his clothes, stripping off his suit jacket and throwing the tie down onto the floor where, honestly, it belongs. Shirt ripped, he’s shoved through the double doors that lead to her bedroom. Bared on his chest is a stark black symbol that means nothing to her. 

“Emmanuel!” Daphne shakes him awake as the woman in his dream takes the man that had been irresistible and just a little familiar. Jealousy still courses through him, turning his stomach and forcing him out of the bed. He throws back the covers and sits up, panting and gulping to keep from puking. 

“Are you alright?” his wife asks, her hand hovering over his shoulder. 

He nods, though he’s not sure. 

“You were yelling like you were having a nightmare.”

“Can people have dreams about people they don’t know?” Emmanuel asks as his stomach finally settles. 

“I don’t know, darling. They say you can’t dream a new face, but I don’t remember my dreams. It was just a nightmare. You’re awake now. It wasn’t real.” 

It had felt real. The want that had coursed through him when he’d seen that man at the bar had been very real. If he can’t dream a new face, could he have known that man before he’d woken up in the middle of nowhere without his memories? No, that was ridiculous. 

After washing the sweat from his face and neck, Emmanuel returns to his bed. The bed he shares with his wife… who is a female. She has green eyes, but they are much paler than the man’s, and her hair is auburn, not the light brown that belonged to the love interest in his dream. She is his female wife, free of tattoos, who had rescued him from the river. She is his wife. He is supposed to dream of her, not of a man. A man with sexual desire spelled out in the way he smiles and bites gently into his lower lip. A man with promises of ecstasy in the gleam of his green eyes. 

When Emmanuel closes his eyes again, the man is there with a moan in his throat as his hands tangle with hers. Her mouth his on his throat, her tongue dragging up his smooth skin. A condom wrapper is on the nightstand near their hands with the condom still inside. Heat of the moment keeping their night moving without the barricades. 

“Cas!” is ripped from his throat as she rides him. Emmanuel knows it’s not her name. Her name is something else. Something forgotten. Something said hours ago in a bar with a too bright sign and a cherry cocktail. That name doesn’t belong to her, but she continues to ride him, her own pleasure showing on her face as she drags one hand down it. 

Emmanuel gasps and sits straight up in his own bed as the man of his dreams reaches his climax, again uttering the wrong name, his eyes squeezed shut and his tanned skin glistening with sweat. His own chest is heaving, and his wife sleeps on, immune to his lust after a man he’s sure is from his past. 

He slips out of bed and goes down the hall to the guest bathroom, afraid of waking his wife by using the master bathroom. He turns on the light and splashes his face with water before leaning over the sink and looking at himself in the mirror. He closes his eyes and lets himself see the man. 

Emmanuel’s hand moves to his own stomach, slipping under the bottom of his shirt as he imagines doing just that to the Cobalt Room patron. In his mind, the man is pressed against the wall of the bathroom, the bright blue light from the Cobalt Room casting through the high window. Their lips are crashing together hungrily, teeth occasionally knocking as they bite at each other’s lips and suck the tongues from the other’s mouths. 

Emmanuel’s hand moves down, slipping under the waistband of his sweats and boxers. He can feel how hard he is, how badly he wants the man from his dreams. 

“Cas,” he imagines the man groaning in his ear. For this moment, he lets himself be Cas. He lets himself be someone the man wants and not Emmanuel, husband to the very female Daphne Allen. 

_ Cas _ strokes his dick, his thumb running over his tender tip before circling the shaft. He imagines it’s the man with the green eyes with his hand down the front of his pants, still pressed close, breathing in the other, their lips trembling and just barely touching. 

He bites back a small whimper as he pumps his hand faster. His free hand feels his own hard abs and defined chest, pretending… Why does it have to be pretending? Pretending that it’s him. His fingers trace the tattoo that isn’t on his chest as precum wets his palm. He continues to beat faster, watching his fantasy edge closer and closer, their breaths coming quicker.

“Cas,” his fantasy moans before capturing his mouth.  _ Cas _ spills over into his boxers, his hand becoming wet and sticky with what he wished was his dream man’s come. 

When he opens his eyes begrudgingly, it’s all over. The blue from the Cobalt Room is gone. He’s Emmanuel, and he’s standing in the guest bathroom with the towels he’s not allowed to use because they’re just there to look nice according to Daphne. His wife. His wife is sleeping down the hallway, unaware of the fantasies of her new husband. 

Emmanuel takes his hand out of his sweats and washes away the guilt before going downstairs to the laundry room to change his clothes. He starts an entire load of laundry, unwilling to try to explain why his boxers and sweats have come all over them. 

There’s no point in going back to sleep. Sure, he wants to dream of the man again, but he shouldn’t want that. He shouldn’t be dreaming it at all. He makes his way to the living room and plops down, dragging his hand over his face. 

He spots Daphne’s laptop and doesn’t bother to resist the urge to look up the Cobalt Room. He opens the computer and begins his very short search. The sign is just the same in the picture on the website as it was in his dream. He must have seen an ad before. Unless he had been there before. If you can’t dream new faces, you probably can’t dream up new logos. Logos that are very much real make his heart leap at the thought of the face being just as real and just as recognizable. 


	2. Emma

When Emmanuel hears Daphne wake up, he clears his browser history, wiping away the evidence of the Cobalt Room. He turns the tv on to the weather channel and goes into the kitchen to start making breakfast. 

The strange thing about food is that Emmanuel doesn’t eat it. Daphne doesn’t know, of course. She remains oblivious as he empties his plates into the dying plants behind his seat in their dining room. When she had found him, she had found him some clothes to wear and bought him a meal to eat. It tasted like (and there was no other way to put it) molecules. Food tasted like the universe and life itself. It did not taste “delicious,” as Daphne often said, or even remotely good. Eating made Emmanuel’s stomach clench, shutting off and forcing everything back up the way it came. He skipped the entire process without explaining that the food simply tasted like too much, and quietly went without. 

He knows humans aren’t supposed to be able to live for months without eating. He’d looked it up when Daphne had noticed, before he’d decided he needed to be more secretive. But if he isn’t human, what is he? 

“When did you wake up?” Daphne asks, snapping Emmanuel back to the kitchen in their house. The eggs are on the hot pan, but he doesn’t remember cracking them. 

“I couldn’t sleep after that nightmare,” Emmanuel lies, hiding his eyes from his wife by looking down at the cooking breakfast. “Coffee is on its way.”

“Thank you, Manny.” Daphne kisses his cheek as she walks by and goes to grab her laptop like she always does. It’s time for her to read the news and check her email to see if there is anyone looking for Emmanuel’s miracles as a last resort. 

Emmanuel finishes the toast and eggs and sets the plate in front of his wife with her coffee, brushing off her questions by telling her he ate before she woke up. She accepts it and sips her coffee, reading him the news as he cleans the dishes. 

When Emmanuel thinks about it, it is kind of weird that he is sleeping or dreaming at all. Usually, he closes his eyes and pretended for hours until Daphne’s alarm goes off. He had never dreamed before. Though, to be fair, he can’t remember anything beyond his riverside rescue a few months before. Who was to say that sleeping wasn’t just resting for a while. Others could be pretending just as much as he is. 

It isn’t until Emmanuel gets home from curing a woman’s lung cancer that he stretches out on the couch and closes his eyes. Daphne goes off into the backyard to garden and before he knows it, he’s dreaming again. 

The man isn’t there, which is disappointing to say the least. It’s the same woman, though. Her face, in total ecstasy last night, is now crumpled in pain. Her forehead is drenched with sweat, but instead of moans, she screams. 

“Pain is an honor,” a voice says above her. 

She pants as a baby cries its first breaths of life. Again, jealousy swarms. There’s no proof that the infant belongs to the man from the dream last night. He’s not even there to look adoringly at his daughter or the exhausted mother. He’s absent from the birth, an outsider, uninvited, but Emma is still the product of his night at the Cobalt Room. 

Emmanuel jerks awake as the voice who named Emma calls, “next!” 

“Do we know anyone named Emma?” Emmanuel asks as casually as he can as he spears from his salad with his fork. Daphne thinks as she chews, screwing up her face to think, running through the contacts list in her mind. 

She shakes her head as she swallows. “No. I don’t think so. Why?” 

“No reason. Just thought we did.” 

“Are you getting some memories back? Should we go back to the doctor?” 

The doctor. A nice man with no actual skill in memory retrieval. No, Emmanuel did not want to go see him. They had spent months going there. The only thing that came of it was the doctor determining that Emmanuel’s name was Emmanuel. Of this, the amnesiac was reasonably sure wasn’t true. After all, this revelation had come after a quick search on bouncingbabynames.com. 

“No. No. Nothing like that.” He waves off the suggestions before her hope can run away with her. Though, why she should hope, he doesn’t know. If his dreams are his memories leaking back into his conscious mind, then he’s in love with a man with a smile that could light up the world. 

Her hope stays in the air, choking him with its stifling pressure. She seems peppier as she clears away their dishes. She stays happy as they watch the evening news together and even when they go to their room and prepare for bed. She smiles at Emmanuel as she gets into bed, even though he’s filled with dread. What will he dream of tonight if he dreams at all? The man who doesn’t belong to him? The woman that makes him turn green? 

He doesn’t chance it. He stays still and forces his breath to a slow, even pace as he does every night, mimicking his wife as she falls asleep. Once she’s under the veil of her own dreams, Emmanuel gets up again and grabs his robe before going back downstairs and grabbing the laptop. 

He looks up the Cobalt Room again, his heart trying to escape from his chest as the too-bright sign illuminates the screen. He copies the address and puts it into another search bar, daring to see how far away it is. 

Nineteen hours and twenty-five minutes by car, two hours and forty minutes by plane, one day and eight hours by bus, four-hundred and thirty-six hours if he dared to walk. It is far away, to put it simply. So then he couldn’t possibly have been there before. Daphne and the doctor had determined that Emmanuel must have always lived in Colorado. Emmanuel also thought this was wrong. But Washington? Had he ever been to Seattle? 

He closes out of the map that makes him dream of green eyes and blue rooms and sits back with a sigh. 


	3. His Name is Dean

“Dean!” Emmanuel cries out as Daphne shakes him awake, tearing him from his dream. Tears immediately begin to spill without permission. 

“You’re awake now. It’s alright!” Daphne’s attempts at comfort are worth nothing right now. Emmanuel’s man with the emerald eyes is… “Who is Dean?” 

Was he saying Dean? Is that the man’s name? The man with the freckles that spell out both want and need so clearly across his gorgeous tanned skin in constellations has a name.  _ Dean. _

Emmanuel chokes on his own sobs as he struggles to rake in enough air to breathe. He pushes the blankets away from himself, effectively shoving Daphne away from him too as he falls to the floor next to the bed. 

“He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.” Emmanuel pulls at his hair, his heart breaking for someone he doesn’t even know. But he did know him. He had to of. Every time he saw him, his entire body filled with love, his heart pulled as if by a rope, and ever since he saw him two nights ago in a sleep he’d never before had, he hadn’t been able to think of anything else, and now he’s just gone? Is he sure? 

“Manny-”

“We have to go to Seattle!” Emmanuel gets up and starts pulling clothes off of the hangers in the closet, throwing them into the nearest suitcase. 

“What are you doing?”

“You’re right. No time. We have to get there now. I’m not sure where he is. He was in a weird room, but he’s cl-”

“We are not going to Seattle! Stop!” Daphne’s hands stop him from moving. “Is this a memory?” 

“No! It’s-” _ It’s happening right now  _ is what Emmanuel forces himself not to say by biting his own tongue hard enough to draw blood. “Maybe! I don’t-”

“You’re bleeding!” 

“I’m fine, but we have to go!” 

“Get in the car. I’ll drive.” Daphne’s voice is too calm. Emmanuel knows she’s not driving him to the airport or to Seattle, but what else is he supposed to do? He gets in the car, his legs bouncing anxiously as he thinks of his dream. He didn’t  _ actually _ see Dean die. He saw Emma pull a knife, her intent to murder her father palpable. 

When Daphne parks the car again, they’re outside of the doctor’s office. In striped pajamas and his usual suit jacket, the doctor is unlocking the door to his office. His thinning gray hair is sticking out in every direction. Daphne woke up the most incompetent doctor on the planet to deal with Emmanuel’s “problem.”

“I don’t need him. I need to get to Seattle. Dean-”

“Tell me who Dean is,” Daphne pleads. Her hands clasp his, her wedding ring shining in the light cast from the single street light that’s glowing. 

“It’s not a memory!” Emmanuel tries again. He can feel his heart shattering. It’s too late, no matter what he does. He’s either dead, or the girl is. A two hour and forty-five minute plane ride won’t change that. A nineteen and a half hour car drive definitely won’t be able to help Dean.  _ Dean. _ Emmanuel crumples, bringing his hands up to cover his face as he begins to cry again. 

“Tell me about the memory you’ve had,” the doctor prompts. Emmanuel sits, resigned, on the couch. He feels broken inside, but maybe it was just a dream. 

“It was a dream,” Emmanuel mumbles. 

“Then tell me about this dream.” The doctor gulps his coffee and some drips down his stubbled chin. Emmanuel watches the coffee drip until the doctor wipes it away with a tissue, leaving tiny white fragments in the unshaven shadow instead. 

“ _ Dean _ was in his motel room alone.” He had been at his computer, striking eyes focused on his screen as he pursed his pink lips. The table had been cluttered with the remnants of dinner: some burger wrappers and empty beer bottles. Instead of the suit with the tie that belonged in someone’s clenched fist, he had been sitting in his faded blue jeans. “His daughter knocked at the door. He wasn’t expecting her to come. He had been expecting her mother to come to try to kill him.”

“Why would his wife come to kill him?”

“She is  _ not _ his wife!” Jealousy surges through Emmanuel again, but it turns ice cold as he remembers that Dean doesn’t belong to him and might not even be alive anymore. 

“Who is she to him?”

“Does it matter?” The doctor nods and Emmanuel sighs. He’s usually much more patient, soft-spoken, and mild-mannered. Tonight, every one of his nerves is on fire as his mind and body scream for him to find Dean and protect him. Dean is a man that Emmanuel would go to Hell and back again for, and he didn’t even know him. “They had a one night stand two nights ago.”

The doctor makes a strange face, accepting the strange dream logic that Emmanuel is sure isn’t from a dream. He bobs his head again, asking Emmanuel to go on with his “dream.”

“Emma, his daughter, asked for his protection. I don’t know if he believed her, but he let her inside. She started to cry as she told him more lies to make it more convincing.”

“Was he convinced?”

Emmanuel thinks of the gun that Dean had, safety off as he prepared to fight for his life. “No. I don’t know. I… No?” Dean had turned his back on her though. He had given her the chance, the trust. It could have been fake, just to pull the truth from her by showing her his guard was down. “When he turned, she grabbed a knife.” 

The knife in question was an ancient blade made of gold that Amazons used in their blood missions. Amazons being a race of monster that can’t possibly exist. She didn’t grab it so much as let it fall into her hand from its hiding spot up her coat sleeve. It was a practiced, fluid motion, her hand grabbing the hilt at just the right moment. Emmanuel had yelled out then, to warn Dean maybe, but the sound had woken both him and his wife. 

“Then what?”

“I… I feared for his life and woke up.” 

“It sounds like you’re right. It was probably just a dream. You’ve been stressed with your traveling for work and Daphne told me that you’ve been having problems sleeping. Does this sound right?”

No. None of it sounds right. Dean is real. Dean is the love of his life, and he is in danger if not dead already, and no one here understands what is happening to him, not even himself. 

“Yes.” Emmanuel wipes a hand over his face. 

“Don’t put too much stock in your dreams. It’s just your brain trying to organize what it’s been learning and dealing with throughout the day.” The doctor smiles a gummy smile, his lower lip covering his teeth and making him look as if he’s forgotten the dentures he doesn’t own. “I’ll prescribe you some sleeping aides. It might make you dream less, but it will give you more restful sleep. We’ll meet again…”

Emmanuel tunes him out as he watches the doctor writing the script for sedatives. He wonders if Daphne had asked for the medicine or had tried insisting that Dean was someone from Emmanuel’s past and that he was getting his memories back. It doesn’t matter. He takes the script and walks out of the room without another word. 

“Manny?”

“Please, Daphne. I’m tired. I just want to sleep.” 

“Of course.”

But Emmanuel doesn’t sleep. He can’t get a glimpse of Dean. He can’t slip into an unconscious stupor that other people call sleeping. He stays awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking one word over and over until Daphne’s alarm goes off.  _ Dean.  _


	4. On My Doorstep

Four months, ten hours, and approximately two minutes. That’s how long Emmanuel has been awake, yearning to see a face. Now it’s here and he’s frozen. Well, they both are. The man from his dreams who had evidently lived after the fight with his daughter is standing on his front porch, with a bloody knife in his hand, standing over the monster. 

Dean. Dean is here. Dean is alive. Dean is standing on his front porch with a look on his face that tells Emmanuel that they did know each other once. He wants to ask if he was ever his. He wants to ask if he’s missed him. He wants to reach out and tell him everything, but he has nothing to tell. He still has no memories except for the strange dreams from four months ago. 

Instead of asking all of those questions, all that escapes a breathless Emmanuel is, “What was that?” 

Dean’s lips are parted and they remain that way as he continues to stare. His eyes are filled with desperation and hope and… sadness. Emmanuel tears his eyes away, losing himself the longer he looks at the man from his dreams that he did not make up. 

He goes into autopilot as his brain shuts down. He walks toward Dean, but passes him to open the door. Inside, Daphne is tied to a chair. He’s vaguely aware of Dean following him inside. His presence is intoxicating. It’s worse than when he existed half a country away and made his guest appearances in the dreams of amnesiacs. 

Emmanuel can hear himself distantly, as if another person is speaking, when he’s calming Daphne. He moves away from her hands as she tries to stroke his face. He turns all of his attention back to Dean. Tall, tan, and handsome and definitely alive, Dean faces him. 

“I’m Emmanuel.” He holds out his hand, knowing that this is a very normal thing to do upon meeting someone, but his heart is pounding out every fantasy he’s had of this man and this moment. 

“Dean.” He takes his hand and he’s sure he will never breathe again. “I’m Dean.” 

It feels like years that Emmanuel and Dean’s eyes lock. It feels like centuries more could pass, and everything would be right with the world if all that they had was each other. Their hands are tight, neither wanting to let go or maybe Emmanuel is imagining it. Their hands fall after the years that it lasted. 

“Thank you for protecting my wife,” he says, realizing that in his other hand, is the hand of Daphne Allen. Dean takes a heavy breath, and Emmanuel’s heart leaps despite the heavy ring on his hand that promises him to another. 

“Your wife.” Is he upset? Jealous? Does he want him to be? 

“I saw his face.” Emmanuel continues. The world is moving too quickly. Everything that just happened is catching up to him right now. Dean is here. Dean is standing in his house. After killing that thing with the horrifying face… mutilated… disfigured… “His real face.” 

He dares to look back at Dean for answers.  _ Dean _ is here. Dean from Seattle. Dean from the Cobalt Room is standing here in his home in Colorado.

“He was a demon.” Dean says it almost casually as if this is everyday information for him. This is not everyday casual information. This is not the kind of thing you say. It’s far from normal to have a  _ demon _ show up on your front porch, dressed in your clothes, to be slain by your crush that materialized from your dream four months prior.

“Demon walk the Earth,” Emmanuel breathes, because it is the only way to get his heart to start beating again. 

“ _ Demons _ .” Emphasis on the pluralization. “Whack-loads of them. You don’t know about…?” His green eyes, the color of soft Spring afternoons, fills with hurt and he heaves a sigh, letting the question hang there. It dawns on Emmanuel that Dean is suggesting that before he lost his memories, he found conversations about demons as normal as conversations about houseplants. Once upon a time, he and Dean might have talked about demons and murder like two neighbors might talk about the weather. 

Daphne is speaking but Emmanuel can’t hear her. He feels himself swaying on his feet and forces himself to stay planted to the spot. Dean nods and drags Emmanuel’s eyes back to him. 

“I hear you heal people up.” That’s why he’s here. Not some divine intervention bringing them together. Not here to bring back his memories and sweep him off of his feet, carrying him away from Colorado with every smile, laugh, and kiss. He’s here, but it isn’t him who needs healing. Maybe Cas, the owner of the name that Dean moans, is in need. 

“I seem to be able to help to a certain degree.” Emmanuel feels himself wilting. Dean doesn’t get the look of relief on his face that Emmanuel had been sure would replace the great sorrow that radiated from him. “What’s your issue?” he prompts.

“My brother.”

“Of course,” Emmanuel says, relief flooding him. His hand lets go of Daphne’s. “Where is he?” 

“Indiana.” 

“That’s a little far…” Daphne tries as Emmanuel asks, “When do we leave?” 

“Can I speak with you for a moment?” Daphne asks. Dean takes a step back, his eyes casting to the floor. Emmanuel reluctantly turns away from him to face his wife. She pulls him into the dining room and he eyes the two dead plants behind his seat. He’s been moving the plants about the room as they died, but he’s forgotten every time he’s had a chance this month. It seems unimportant now.

“I can’t just go to Indiana at the drop of a hat, Manny. You have plenty of work here to do.” 

“You have to stay here and go to work.” Emmanuel glances impatiently over his shoulder. He aches to be alone with Dean even if it’s just for a road trip that starts and ends with Colorado because at least he will have some time with the man from his dreams. 

“You can’t just run off with strangers.”

_ He’s not a stranger.  _ “His brother needs my help.” She opens her mouth to answer with another attempt to keep him away from Dean, but Emmanuel cuts her off. “I’ll see you when I get home.” She squeezes his hand and he’s gone. 

“Dean?”

Dean looks up, his hand falling from his neck. Hope flickers behind the aura of hurt. Emmanuel’s heart pounds. 

“When do we leave?” 


	5. Driving With Dean

Dean waits in his car that’s parked outside while Emmanuel goes upstairs to pack. He looks out of the window of his bedroom to see Dean leaning against the car. It looks somehow wrong. He seems like he belongs next to a shining black car that gleams in the sunlight, taken care of well past its prime, not next to a rusting junk car with a dull black paint. 

Emmanuel moves quickly, grabbing a bag from the closet. It’s the same bag that he’d grabbed four months ago in his frenzy to get to Seattle to rescue Dean. Just as feverish, Emmanuel throws a toothbrush and toothpaste into the bag along with three shirts, five sets of boxers, and two socks. He throws in his suit for good measure before zipping it closed. 

“When will you be back?” Daphne asks from the doorway. She’s pouting or worried or both. Emmanuel’s eyes stray to the window where he’d gazed down on Dean as if from Heaven. 

“It’s a days drive there.” He bows his head, guilt pressing in on him. This woman took him in, and here he was, scrambling to get out the door and into the car with a man that made his heart go wild and his stomach fill with butterflies. 

“Can we talk about this?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. He needs my help.” 

“That’s it?” The strain in her voice makes Emmanuel look over at her. She’s chewing on her bottom lip, letting her anxiety shine through. 

“What?” 

“Who is he?”

His heart drops into his stomach. He’s Dean. He’s the man from the Cobalt Room with the stiff drink and slight stubble. He’s charm and flirtation. He’s the man from his dreams, moaning _Cas_ in his ear as he came to his climax alone in the guest bathroom. He’s the air rushing by the open window of a car on a sunny day. He is the adrenaline and dopamine rushing through Emmanuel’s veins in their epic race. He’s Dean. 

“He’s no one. His brother just needs help.”

Emmanuel moves past her, forgetting his bag in the closet as he takes the stairs two at a time. 

“I love you! Call me when you get there!”

“Yeah,” Emmanuel calls without stopping or looking back. The door shuts behind him and he belongs to Dean. 

An hour passes with Dean driving. Emmanuel doesn’t dare check the speedometer, but they are certainly well over the speed limit. The longer they drive and the farther they get, Emmanuel feels more and more at ease even sitting next to a complete stranger that makes his imagination and heart run wild. Every so often, he notices Dean peeling his eyes from the road to look at him. Emmanuel stares straight ahead at the road. 

“So Daphne…” Dean says, shattering the silence. “Your wife?” 

Emmanuel doesn’t want to talk about her. His mouth goes dry, and he absently plays with the ring on his finger as he nods slowly. “She found me and cared for me.” 

“Meaning?” Why does he have to sound so jealous? It’s turning Emmanuel’s insides, twisting him up into knots. 

“Oh, it’s a strange story. You may not like it.” 

“Believe me, I will.” 

Emmanuel wants to melt into the seat of the car, vanish into thin air, or spontaneously combust just to not have this conversation with the man he’s been fantasizing about for four months. He chews on the inside of his lip, debating. He could jump out of the car and be fine, not a scratch, but then he would be without Dean. He desperately wants to be in two places at once: beside Dean for the rest of eternity, and far away from any conversation about Daphne or his life. 

“A few months ago she was hiking by the river and I wandered into her path, drenched and confused and…” He blushes and looks over at Dean which is a mistake. “Unclothed,” he finishes, quickly looking away before he can see Dean’s reaction. “I had no memory. She said God wanted her to find me.”

Dean’s stare brings Emmanuel’s eyes back to him. There’s a beat of silence, but it doesn’t sound silent to Emmanuel. It’s filled with his blood rushing in his ears as his heart beats too fast. He swallows, resisting the urge to lick his lips, and looks away. It was a mistake getting into this car with this man. He will never be his Cas, able to elicit such ecstasy. 

“So, who named you Emmanuel?” Dean asks the dreaded question. Emmanuel wants to curl up and die. 

_A bad doctor with a good internet connection._ “Bouncingbabynames.com.” 

“Well, it’s workin’ for ya.” There is no truth in that sentence and Emmanuel cringes inwardly. He hates the name just as much has he hates that doctor. “Must be weird not knowing who you are,” Dean continues. 

“Well, it’s my life. It’s a good life.” Who is he trying to convince, because it isn’t Dean. 

“Yeah, but what if you were some kind of…” Dean considers his words, and Emmanuel holds his breath, waiting for Dean to unravel the entirety of his life. They had to of known each other once, it is just locked away. “I don’t know… Bad guy.” 

Hurt and confusion fill Emmanuel as he thinks it over. “I don’t feel like a bad person.” 

Dean only nods and there’s nothing else to say. Emmanuel shrinks in on himself, still considering the possibility of his past. There’s just a white screen before the day Daphne had found him. Nothing exists past that point. He had tried hypnosis, therapy, medication, and banging his head against a wall while Daphne was away. His past eludes him. 

Dean goes back to driving as he periodically looks over at him. He wants to say something to Emmanuel, that much is obvious, but no words come. The radio remains off as they both think, the silence deafening. 

Only a half hour passes before it occurs to Emmanuel that he jumped into a strangers car based off of infatuation. Neither of them had so much as breathed another word about where Emmanuel is being taken and who he is supposed to be healing.

“So, your brother,” Emmanuel says, breaking the silence open after Dean has looked over at him and away again for the sixtieth time. 

“Sam.”

“Sam.” Emmanuel nods. He feels Dean look over at him again and swallows. “What’s his diagnosis?”

“Well.” Dean clears his throat and shifts as if the topic makes him uncomfortable, like he isn’t the one who had sought Emmanuel’s help. “It’s not exactly medical.” 

“That should be fine.” Emmanuel nods, trying not to look over at Dean no matter how badly he wants to. “I can cure illness of a spiritual origin.” 

Dean looks over at him again and this time he can’t resist. He finally looks over and their eyes lock. Everything about Dean is magnetic. He wants to reach out and run his hand down the side of Dean’s face and promise him that he will heal his brother and heal his hurt. He wants to pull Dean against him and kiss him softly at first, just to feel the soft touch of his lips, and then deepen the kiss as he grows hungrier. He wants to drag his hands through Dean’s hair as his tongue is swallowed. He wants to hold Dean close and let all of his melancholy drip away. 

“Spiritual?” Dean asks, breaking the eye contact and nodding. “Okay.” 

It feels like the end of a conversation. It feels like Dean putting the wall back up because he somehow read Emmanuel’s thoughts. Emmanuel looks back out at the road and presses his lips together gently. 

“Somebody did this to him,” Dean confides after a moment, shocking Emmanuel. He can feel the anger in the statement. It doesn’t feel like the poignancy that had radiated from Dean before. Though his voice is calm, Emmanuel can feel the change in emotion. 

“You’re angry.” 

“Well, yeah. Dude broke my brother’s head.” 

“He betrayed you, this dude?” Emmanuel notices he’s staring openly at Dean now, but he can’t look away. Not while Dean is opening up, his heart a book for Emmanuel to read. Well. Not entirely. Only one page of Dean’s book is available to Emmanuel, so he reads it like the novel he craves. 

Dean nods slowly and looks over, allowing their eyes to lock again. Emmanuel knows that distracted driving is dangerous, but he doesn’t want Dean to look away. 

“He was your friend?” Emmanuel digs deeper. 

Dean considers the question, eyes piercing Emmanuel. He seems to scan him, dragging his gaze over his body. Emmanuel swallows hard and watches as Dean returns his eyes to the road.

“Yeah, well. He’s gone.” 

“Did you kill him?” Emmanuel asks before he can stop himself. Dean looks over at him with wide eyes, telling him that the question is inappropriate. “I sense that you kill a lot of people.” 

Sense is a better word than dream, right? He saw Dean in his motel room when he had been expecting his hitman to arrive. He’d held his gun like a trained soldier who was not only ready to shoot to kill, but had done so many times before. Not to mention, he’d stabbed a demon to death on his front porch a little over an hour ago. 

Dean stammers for a moment before landing on, “Honestly, I don’t know if he is dead.” The anger is gone again. As swiftly as it had arrived, it evaporated. “I just know that this whole thing couldn’t be messier.” His voice sounds vulnerable and raw. “You know, I used to be able to just shake this stuff off. Whatever it was… might take me some time, but I always could.”

This _dude_ who had hurt Dean and his brother was something special once. He probably still is. 

“What _Cas_ did… I just can’t. I don’t know why.” 

Emmanuel’s eyebrows shoot up at the name. His head fills with the sounds of Dean moaning that name into the night as he climaxed again and again. 

“Well, it doesn’t matter why.”

“Of course, it matters.” 

“No. You’re not a machine, Dean.” He looks over at his driver, his dream. “You’re human.” Dean doesn’t answer. He deliberately looks away, unwilling to accept his mortal flaw. 

Emmanuel continues to watch him, taking in every detail of him like it might be the last chance he gets to see the man from his dreams even though they still have thirteen hours left in the car together. He’s breathtaking. The green eyes that he’d been clinging to the memory of stare ahead, concentrating on the road. His jaw is a chiseled line under the shadow of stubble, his lips a tantalizing pink. He remembers those lips parting, gasping, panting, moaning, “Cas.”

“Your friend’s name was Cas,” Emmanuel says, turning away. “That’s an odd name.” 

He can feel Dean’s eyes on him. Emmanuel doesn’t look back, concentrating on not showing the blush that threatens to invade his cheeks as he keeps his hands politely in his lap to cover the evidence of his thoughts. 

Dean clears his throat and turns his head the opposite direction. Emmanuel can see his eyes in the side mirror, once again filled with the most profound misery. 


	6. Sky Full of Stars

Dean drives faster than anyone else Emmanuel has ever been in a car with. The world outside of their car is just a blur of colors and Dean seems at ease. He drives with one hand on the steering wheel and looks completely serene as he speeds along, carrying them farther and farther away from Colorado. As the sun dips, the other cars slowly vanish from the road, and they are completely alone. 

“I love looking at the stars,” Emmanuel says as he gazes out the window, his face turned up to the sky. “All of the possibilities in the constellations.”

Dean glances over and nods before pulling off the main road to an overlook. The rest of the parking spaces are empty and the world seems muted. The sky stretches out before them and the world beneath it is dark and quiet. Dean pulls the keys from the ignition and sits back in his seat for a moment. 

“I should stop driving for the night anyway,” Dean sighs. Emmanuel looks over at him. Dean looks right back and all of the air is sucked out the car. Dean tears his eyes away and Emmanuel can feel the snap of tension. His driver rubs his eyes with his fingers before pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Why?”

“I just need like four hours.” The words pain Dean audibly. His voice is strained, as if the words are ones that he remembers saying from the past, but why should it hurt? 

“I’ll just...” Emmanuel turns away and gets out of the car, giving the man what privacy he can. 

He stands in front of the car, staring up at the expanse of the heavens in wonder. He doesn’t dare turn around to look back through the windshield. He can feel Dean’s eyes on him, making his neck heat up and his stomach somersault. 

The feeling is soon gone and he finally dares to look back over his shoulder. Dean is slouched in his seat with his arms folded over his chest. His green eyes are closed to the world, his head tipped forward just a little. His chest rises and falls in a gentle, even rhythm. Emmanuel can’t help but watch. He looks peaceful for the first time. In the bar four months ago, he had been putting on his act, his charm, his mask. In his hotel room, he was tense with the expected murder attempt as he stayed up researching in hopes of catching his killer off-guard. For the past several hours, his face has flickered between inner turmoil, complete anguish, and a blank slate. 

No one has attracted Emmanuel like Dean does. There’s lust, that much is apparent, but it’s more than that. He deserves to be loved and protected, held gently, reassured, and unburdened. 

The stars reflect on the windshield of the car, blanketing Dean in the night sky as he dreams. Does he dream of Cobalt Rooms, stolen kisses, and strange men? Does he dream of his past? Of times that were better? Times when he and his Cas were happy, before any dispute? Does he dream of long, open roads, an engine rumbling? Does he dream of blue eyes while Emmanuel dreams of green? 

Emmanuel turns away as he twists the ring from his finger. He can’t go back to Daphne or Colorado after this. He can’t fill her life with a loveless marriage, because now that he knows that there’s something to feel, he doesn’t want to let go. He doesn’t know if what he feels when he looks at Dean is love, but he knows that he wants to feel it every day for the rest of his life. He wants to stop at the side of the road to look at the maps of stars while a gorgeous man sleeps soundly behind him. He wants to feel like this all the time. Like his soul is aflame with (there is no other word that fits) Dean. 

Emmanuel’s world is lit up with green. Freckles are the constellations that he is looking at now. It doesn’t matter if he is looking up at the sky or into the car behind him. His destiny is mapped out on a sleeping face. 

It doesn’t matter how this trip ends. It could end with a “thank you” and an offer for a ride home after a job well done, but he would refuse. He can’t go back. It could end with a kiss, tender and soft, a promise whispered. He could be lead by his hand back into this car to follow Dean wherever he chooses to go, or it could end with Emmanuel at the side of the road with nowhere to go. He can’t go back to Daphne and the forced smiles, false recoveries, and empty conversations. He can’t go back to laying down in a bed, pretending to sleep for the sake of not being dragged back to the doctor. He can’t keep killing plants just to avoid eating. Not once throughout their trip had Dean offered him food, a rest stop, or a motel room to sleep. He treats him like he knows that none of those things matter. Like he knows him from before and that he’s always been like this. Who is he?

Emmanuel walks to the fence that runs along the edge of the parking area. Beyond the fence is a severe dip into untamed wilderness. Flowers that live among the trees running wild and free. Emmanuel drops his ring beyond the fence and doesn’t bother to try to watch where it falls. He turns back to the car with his future and walks back to it, a weight lifted from his shoulders.

He hesitates with his fingers on the handle of the passenger side door. He heaves a sigh, breathing in his choice to run away and abandon the life he had been leaving, and slowly lets the air go with the remaining apprehension. He is doing the right thing. The door opens under his hand and he slides back into his seat. 

Beside him, Dean shifts in his sleep. Emmanuel stiffens until Dean settles. He looks over at Dean and lets his eyes devour him. He lands on his hand that has fallen to the seat between them. His fingers are limp except for a rare twitch as he dreams. Emmanuel aches to reach out and hold his hand. There will never be an excuse to shake his hand ever again and it had ended too quickly though it had lasted a lifetime in the moment. 

Emmanuel knows that Dean is not his patient, but his feet could hurt from the drive. His neck could be twisting up into knots from that sleeping position. His muscles could ache from the long hours. He deserves a more restful sleep than that in the front seat of a car for four hours. He had researched sleep once, after Daphne had asked him how he had slept. Other people, people who sleep, usually do so for six to eight hours. Not four. He can help with that too, boosting the energy level and the relief gained from this nap with just a touch. All of it could be helped with a gentle touch. 

Emmanuel reaches over and grazes Dean’s upturned palm with his index and middle fingers. He doesn’t let the touch linger, afraid of waking Dean, but he heals all of the physical aches and pains as well as the exhaustion. Emmanuel retracts his hand and turns away before he can be rewarded for anything. He looks out the window again and focuses on Dean’s breaths, matching the rhythm. 

In a perfect world, Emmanuel would heal Dean’s brother, and he would confess to his disinterest of being returned to Colorado. In this perfect world, they would become friends, and as the betrayal of Cas faded in the distance, Dean would grow fonder of Emmanuel. In the most perfect world, Emmanuel would be Dean’s. 

Dean’s heart belongs to Cas, though. Through their fight, Dean is still in love with him. Four months ago there was still a chasm between them, one that Dean still can’t heal from. When Cas’ name reaches the surface, Dean’s eyes tell the entire story of love lost and the misery that grips his heart. That name on his lips is both torture and bliss. And a knife in Emmanuel’s heart. Emmanuel’s soul that calls out to Dean with desperation and what could possibly, maybe, probably be love. 


	7. The Demon, Meg

The clear water stretches out before Dean. His green eyes, brighter in the sunlight, are trained on one spot, anxiety lining his face. 

“Cas!” Dean yells over the reservoir as a vortex opens in the center. The void closes up and releases a burble of inky black that spreads, dissipating into nothing again. “Cas!” Dean calls again. 

There is no answer. The sky is fluffed with clouds, the trees as green as they could ever be. The world is beautiful and oblivious to the grief of the single human standing on the edge of the bank of the municipal waters. 

“No, no, no.” Dean drags his hands through his hair as his eyes fill with tears. “No!” 

Dean is shaking as he stands rooted to the spot. His eyes scan the water now, as if that spot is less important now that the vortex is gone. The heartbreak is palpable, filling the air with heavy despair. 

His eyes stop as does his heart when they land on a filthy trenchcoat. It floats in the water, caught in an eddy. Dean finally moves. He picks up the dripping mess to confirm that it is his worst fear. It’s covered in blood and the black venom that had dispersed into the water. It’s something that is no longer fit to be called clothing. 

Dean crumples to the ground, the coat clutched tightly in his fists. He doubles over as a scream is ripped from him. The wet coat is pressed to his chest as the tears fall into the water. 

Emmanuel opens his eyes and looks over at Dean. He’s still asleep, though his jaw is clenched. Did he just dream Dean’s dream? Is that even possible? Emmanuel had never slept in his half a year of memories except for the three dreams four months ago and the one just now. All of them were tied to Dean. He could only sleep if he was dreaming of Dean. 

Emmanuel looks away, feeling suddenly as if he’s intruded. He wasn’t meant to have seen that dream. That moment. A memory? Both? Either? Did it matter? None of it had been for him to see and he had seen it. 

Dean makes a strange noise in the back of his throat, like a whimper caught in a choke. He sits up, eyes open, and wipes his hand down his face. He looks over at Emmanuel but doesn’t say anything. They remain silent for a moment while Dean regains his composure and consciousness. 

“Ready?” Dean asks, glancing over again. Emmanuel nods without making eye contact, the guilt rolling over in his stomach. The car starts and Dean pulls away from the vista, the ring, abandoned in the night, and their shared dream. 

It’s only after Dean’s had his coffee and the sun has come up that Dean clears his throat. “So, really though? Emmanuel?”

“What?” Emmanuel looks over at Dean for the first time all morning and is filled with all of the light of a thousand solar systems when Dean’s eyes meet his. He swallows hard and holds the stare. 

“Why that name? There are tons of other names to choose. Why Emmanuel?” Dean glances at the empty road ahead of him as he talks, but his eyes always come back to him. 

“What other name would be more suitable?”

“I don’t know,” Dean sighs, blowing out his cheeks as he thinks. “Steve or something.” 

“Steve?” 

“I don’t know. Forget it.”

“How did you acquire your name?” Emmanuel asks, unwilling to let the conversation die out. Dean’s eyebrows draw together like he has never expected to be asked such a question even though he asked just yesterday. 

“It’s a family name. My mom named me.” He smiles and the world is bright again. He breathes out a small chuckle and shakes his head. “Sam is a family name too.”

“Your parents weren’t very original then?” 

Dean chokes on his laugh and shakes his head again. “No, I guess not.” When the car is quiet again, Dean picks up his hand and lets it fall against the rim of the wheel. Something is on his mind. “How far back does your memory go?”

“Six months.” Emmanuel squirms. Is this where Dean tells him how they know each other? Is this where he finds out just exactly what Dean knows about him? 

“So you remember everything from six months till now? Or does it get erased?”

“What do you mean?” Emmanuel keeps his hands from fidgeting by pressing his palms into the fabric of his pants. 

“In this tv show that I…” Dean glances from Emmanuel to the road again. “I don’t watch. It’s just on sometimes. You know how it is.” Emmanuel nods, but he does not know how it is. “There’s this guy who has amnesia. His entire past is gone. His identity is wiped. But the new memories he makes are completely fine. They stick with him. Is it like that for you?”

“Yes.” Emmanuel nods. “What happened to this guy?”

“Tons. Lots of woman troubles. They’re working on accessing his memories now. Trying to get him to remember. It will be bad if he remembers his past because his new life is so much better. Not that I would know.”

“Of course not,” Emmanuel agrees. For the first time, Dean seems just a little less tense. His jaw clenches though, ending the moment. Emmanuel feels his heart pounding, aching to know what he said that was wrong. 

Just after noon, Dean pulls off the main road and drives into the small town that’s just off the exit. He parks and immediately shuts off the engine and gets out of the car. 

“Oh, uh, hey. Just, uh, sit tight. I’ll be right out, okay?” He says, looking through his open window at Emmanuel. 

He watches Dean walk across the road to the shop labeled  _ George’s Convenience.  _ His legs are bowed, but long, the jeans clinging in all the right places. He tries to blend in and look casual, but that’s impossible. He’s easily the most gorgeous man to grace these parts. These parts being Earth. Emmanuel sighs at his own thoughts and gets out of the car. He can’t just sit and watch, waiting for the man he’s lusting after to come back. 

Emmanuel gets out and shuts the door with a little more force than necessary, clenching his hands into fists. Once his pants become considerably less tight, Emmanuel relaxes his hands and glances over at the store. The sign has changed to closed. He ignores it and starts scanning the rest of the bland buildings that surround him. 

When he hears the door open across the street, he forces himself not to look. Desperate as he is to stare at Dean and memorize his movements as he walks, he knows that it’s not his place. Even with his eyes averted, his outward manner calm and relaxed, Emmanuel can hear Dean’s feet accompanied by another. Did he find Cas? His heart chokes him, lodging itself into his throat. He tries to swallow it down as he turns to greet Dean. 

His stomach turns, but not out of jealousy. The woman with Dean has two faces. The human one, heart-shaped and sweet, and the demon one, disfigured, cruel, uninviting, horrific, and scarring. If demons are uglier with every bad deed done, this one was bigger than the thing that Dean had killed on his front porch yesterday. 

“Her face— She’s one of—” 

“It’s okay,” she cuts him off in a reassuring, slightly amused tone. “We come in different flavors.” 

“She’s a… a friend.” Dean looks away from her as he says it. It’s not quite the truth, but it’s definitely not romantic. Would he befriend demons? 

“Meg.” She introduces herself when Dean doesn’t. “I’m just here for moral support. After all, we go way back.” Dean shoots her a look and she grins. “Dean and me,” she clarifies with that smug smirk. “I just met you, of course!” 

Emmanuel’s stomach twists tighter. He can look past the hideous face, but the situation feels off. His past, still behind a wall of plastered brick, makes less sense now that he gets the feeling he knew Dean  _ and _ Meg once upon a time. What is Dean hiding from him? Why does he know a demon? Why can’t he remember?

“I think we’re going to be good friends too,” Meg says, stepping closer. It’s hard to miss Dean’s jealousy. It fills Emmanuel with figurative butterflies. It would be rather alarming if they were real butterflies. He had never understood the expression before. Daphne’s friends had used it a few times, and it had always seemed awkward and appalling. Now, Emmanuel knows exactly why that expression exists. He feels it as Dean’s jealousy boils up. Jealousy over him. 

“Alright, can we go?” 


	8. I Spy

There’s something that feels right about sitting next to Dean as he drives. It doesn’t matter that the car doesn’t fit Dean. It barely matters that there’s a demon sitting in the backseat. At least, it felt that way when Meg tried to take the front seat and Dean told her that Emmanuel is sitting up front. That’s how it felt as Emmanuel took his place by Dean’s side and tried to keep his eyes off of the driver. 

“So, what’s this cutie-pie’s name?” Meg asks from the backseat, her arms resting on the back of Emmanuel and Dean’s seat. 

“Emmanuel,” Dean and Emmanuel say at the same time. They glance at each other quickly and Dean returns his eyes to the road, his jaw clenched. Meg looks between them with a smirk. 

“Where have you been hiding?” she asks, returning her penetrating eyes to Emmanuel. His skin crawls.

“Meg,” Dean warns, shooting a glare into the rearview mirror. 

“What? I’m just asking where he’s from. Cool it, Dean.” He clenches his jaw and his knuckles turn white on the wheel. 

“Uh, Colorado.” Emmanuel looks out the window at the trees passing, but he can still see the reflection of her true face in the glass. His stomach rolls. Why would Dean ever be friends with a creature like this? 

“For how long?”

“Alright! That’s enough of twenty questions,” Dean says loudly. Meg puts her hands up and sits back in her seat. Secrets live in her eyes as they glint. 

“Is it okay if we play another game, _Dad_?” Meg asks, her mouth sliding into the crooked grin that seems to be her default. 

“How about we play the silent game?”

“That’s no fun. How about. I-Spy?” She looks back at Emmanuel, one eyebrow raised in question. 

“How do you play?” Emmanuel asks and Dean sighs.

“You give clues to something you can see. The other people, demons, monsters, and party-goers all guess what you’re thinking of. Think you can handle that, Emmanuel?”

“It seems simple.” Emmanuel looks to Dean, hoping he will play and not leave him alone with the demonic woman. 

“I’ll go first,” she says as she sits up. 

“Wrong. I’ll go.” Dean interjects. Despite the rude interruption, Meg grins like she’s won a private game and not the current game of I-Spy. “I spy something blue.” 

Meg’s mouth pinches as her eyes light up. She looks over at Emmanuel with her private joke lighting up her human face. “What is something that’s on Dean’s mind and is so very, very blue?” 

Emmanuel’s stomach flips as the sign of the Cobalt Room fills his mind. He chokes and Dean swerves, looking over too fast to make sure he’s okay. Emmanuel punches himself in the chest a few times to restart his heart and looks out the window. He looks around at the rolling green hills and gray road. White signs that read black numbers telling Dean that he should be driving considerably slower. And an expanse of blue sky above it all, hiding the stars that Emmanuel had gazed upon the night before. 

“The sky?” 

Dean blushes, his freckled cheeks pink for just a moment. “Sure.” 

“Is it, Dean? Is it really?” Meg asks and Dean’s jaw tightens. 

“Yes. You’re up, Emmanuel.” 

“I spy something…” Emmanuel looks around, his eyes catching on Dean. His heart leaps as Dean looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “Green,” he says before he can stop himself. 

“Green?” Dean looks out at the hills and to the trees. 

“Is it in the car?” Meg asks, a laugh just under the surface of her words. 

“Do you see green in this car? No, it’s not in the car,” Dean answers for Emmanuel, though he is very wrong. His eyes are the perfect green of peridot and emerald mixed in a bowl of sunlight. His eyes are the single color that Emmanuel would choose if he could only see one color for the rest of his life. “The trees?”

“Yes,” Emmanuel says, remembering the last time he had lied and said yes when the answer was a very firm _no._ Back when he thought Dean was dying and he was between falsely admitting to having had a vivid dream or being institutionalized by the world’s worst doctor. 

“My turn,” Meg announces as Emmanuel swallows down his lie. “I spy, with my little eye, something…”

“Behave,” Dean orders. 

“Something _ethereal_ ,” Meg finishes, ignoring Dean. 

“That’s—”

“The end of the game!” Dean says, cranking the knob on the radio. Rock starts blasting from the speakers to drown out any more noise from the backseat, but she isn’t trying to talk. She’s sitting back in her seat, arms crossed smugly as she smirks at Dean in the mirror. 

The radio starts to feed static into the speakers at top volume after an hour and Emmanuel looks at Dean for permission to turn it off. Dean meets his eye and turns off the radio again, leaving the car in a heavy silence. Meg sits up and looks between Dean and Emmanuel. She has secrets and Dean knows them. Dean keeps his jaw clenched, unwilling to make carefree conversation now that Meg is here.

“This silence is very uncomfortable,” Emmanuel says awkwardly. “Is there something I should know?” 

“I don’t know. Dean?” Meg shakes her head, looking at Dean with humor glinting in her eyes. 

“Meg has that effect.” Dean glances over at Emmanuel and the eye contact is a shock to the heart. “Awkward. You know?” Again, Emmanuel does not know. He looks away and Emmanuel is caught off guard by his breath catching. He turns his gaze to the demon. 

“That must be very difficult for you.” 

“Dean’s making a joke, Emmanuel.” She looks on Dean with that perpetually amused face again. Her entire being seems to hold the jokes of the world. Nothing can make her frown, not while she holds the keys to laughter at others expense. 

“Oh.” Emmanuel tries out a laugh like he had to do for Daphne often. He never laughs at anything. It doesn’t feel natural. He always seems to miss every joke and has to follow along with everyone else’s laughter and smiles. He had to with Daphne, or through another excruciating appointment with the doctor. 

Dean furrows his brow as he looks over at him. The forced laugh dies out immediately. Pre-amnesia, did he still not laugh? Back when Dean knew him, in the before time that Dean keeps hidden from him, did he never laugh or smile? Has he always been like this? 

“Can we just not?” Dean asks, looking to both Meg and Emmanuel for their cooperation. 

“Sure.” Meg slouches in her seat. 

Dean’s eyes remain on Emmanuel’s again, sucking the air out of the car, the world, the universe. There seems to be nothing left to breathe, and the space between them is instead filled with electricity. Emmanuel nods though he’s not sure what he agrees to. 

“We’re almost there,” Dean grunts and wipes a hand over his mouth. The closer they get to Sam, the tenser Dean becomes. He’s not ready to see his brother in pain again. Picking up the healer was an item on a to-do list. Emmanuel is just another checkmark to keep Dean from losing it. He is happy to be a checkmark for Dean. 

Dean hadn’t been lying. The rest of the short drive is silent. The car comes to a stop and Dean pulls the keys from the ignition. He heaves a full breath and sighs it out as if steeling himself for what comes next. He gets out of the car without a word. 

Emmanuel’s eyes remain trained on Dean as he gets out of the car, but when he stands up, he can see the hospital. Demons surround it, their true faces covering their scrubs and human hosts. “Oh, gracious.”

“Dammit. Demons.” Meg adds.

“All of them?” Dean must be blind to their true forms. How can he not see them? What’s the use of staring through the binoculars if he can’t see?

“No grass growing under your feet.”

“How many of those knives do you have?” Emmanuel cuts in, remembering Dean’s heroic kill in Colorado. It must be the only way to kill a demon.

“Just the one.”

“Well then, forgive me, but what do we do?” 

“Yeah, Dean. Got any other ideas on how we can blast through that?” Meg deadpans, drawing another exhausted look from Dean. 

Everyone looks at Emmanuel. It feels like knives all over his body. 

“‘Scuse us,” Dean says, his eyes leaving Emmanuel to glare at Meg. “Meg.” 

“Oh, for the love of—” She walks off after Dean and it isn’t far. Emmanuel knows eavesdropping is wrong, but it’s hard to avoid when they are standing directly behind him and speaking loudly. “Sam’s in there!” She says it like she’s familiar with Sam. Maybe Dean hadn’t been lying about being friends with a demon. “I know you’re enjoying the double-dip with your old pal, but—”

“You think it’s that cut and dry? Really? You know what he did. And you just want to tell him and hope that he takes it in stride? He could snap. He could… disappear. Who knows?” Dean’s heart is in his mouth, spilling forth all of his feelings. 

“I gather we know each other?” Emmanuel asks. 

“Just a dollop,” Meg says as Dean spins around to face him. 

“You can tell me. I’ll be fine.” Emmanuel has been waiting since Dean showed up on his doorstep to find out the answer to this question. He deserves to know why he dreams of green-eyed men in cobalt blue rooms that later show up at his door. 

“How do you know?” Dean turns his entire body toward Emmanuel. If he took a few steps, they could be in each other’s arms. “You just met yourself! I’ve known you for years!”

“You’re an angel,” Meg interrupts. It’s out of place and uncalled for. Dean’s face falls. 

“I’m sorry. Is that a flirtation?” Emmanuel asks, repulsed and confused. Dean does a double-take but doesn’t speak, his words missing. 

“No. It’s a species. A very powerful one.”

“She’s not lyin’,” Dean admits. His voice is full of the hurt that shines in his eyes. “Okay, that’s why you heal people. You don’t eat. I’m sure there’s more.” 

He had noticed that Dean didn’t offer him any food whenever they stopped. He had known that somehow, Dean knew about him. Daphne didn’t know, her plants paying the price for her ignorance, but Dean… Dean knows. Dean knows and he doesn’t want to change it. 

“Why wouldn’t you tell me? Being an angel. It sounds pleasant.” 

“It’s not. Trust me.” Dean is struggling with this truth. Everything that’s been hurting him seems to be resurfacing after being shoved down. All of his wounds are being opened. “It’s bloody. It’s corrupt. It’s not _pleasant_.” 

“He would know. You used to fight together,” Meg smirks. “Bestest friends, actually.” 

Emmanuel’s chest tightens as he watches Dean’s cheeks pale. He looks away from Emmanuel to glare at the demon, but it’s too late. He watches the color drain from Dean’s face. Friends. Soldiers on the same battlefield. Please. He can be anyone but Cas. Anyone but Cas. If he’s Cas, he caused all of this pain. 

“We’re friends?” is all Emmanuel manages, though his heart is screaming. Dean looks at him deliberately, but doesn’t say anything. “Am I Cas?” 

He’s answered with silence. He watches Dean’s eyes fill with greater misery than before as he clenches his jaw. Cas. He’s Cas. He’s the man, the angel, the best friend, the lover who ruined everything. He’s who Dean cries and yearns for. He’s the one whose name gets called out in the night, passing Dean’s lips in a wave of—

“I had no idea.” He drops his eyes to the floor, unwilling to drown in Dean’s sorrowful eyes. “I don’t remember you. I’m sorry.” It’s only part of the truth. He remembers the dreams. He remembers moaning in the guest bathroom, his hands down his own pants as he thought about Dean. He remembers jealousy eating him alive as he dreamed of the woman who had his daughter. He remembers the panic that surged through him when he thought that Dean was dead. The panic that made him pack a bag in the middle of the night, ready to flee to Seattle to save him. He remembers lying awake night after night, desperate to see Dean, hoping that the man of his dreams was still alive. That is all that he remembers and nothing that Dean knows. 

“Look, you got the juice. You can smite every demon in that lot,” Meg says, dragging him out of his thoughts. Dean can’t look at him. Dean’s heart is broken. If only he could heal that. 

“But I don’t remember how.” Cas stares out over the hospital with the demons. 

“It’s in there,” Dean promises at his side. He’s hoping it’s all there. Their epic love story trapped somewhere inside with the angel powers. “I’m sure it’s just like riding a bike.” Cas looks at Dean and it’s a mistake. Every time he looks at Dean it’s a mistake. All he wants to do is close the distance and feel his lips on his skin. He wants to taste him and press his body against his, feel Dean’s hands on him. 

“I don’t know how to do that either,” Cas admits, swallowing away the intense urge to give into his fantasies. Dean’s eyes drop to Cas’ lips before he looks away. He wants it too. “Alright, I’ll try.”

Cas makes his way down the hill toward the monsters, prepared to have Dean follow him, blade drawn, to protect him when no angel powers appear. He fully expects to attempt to smite and be killed in the process. Sam is inside and it’s his fault. Dean’s heart is broken and it’s his fault. He just doesn’t remember how. He’s fully prepared to die and put order back into Dean’s world. Dean’s world where Cas was dead. Was it better then? Or is he glad that he’s here? Alive? It doesn’t matter.

“Hey, I know you,” the demon that Cas approaches says. “You’re dead!”

“Yeah, so I’ve heard.” 

He doesn’t know why he does it, but he places his palm to the forehead of the demon and feels power flow through him. The eyes of the human vessel light up. The mouth opens to scream, the same light spilling forth. 

He remembers. He remembers reaching into Hell, his hands gripping Dean’s shoulders as he stole him away, raising him from Perdition. He remembers telling Jimmy Novak to trust him as he stole his body. He remembers the barn doors opening before him as he shattered the lights above him, sparks raining down on him as he looked into Dean’s green eyes for the first time through human eyes. He remembers Dean firing salt rounds into his chest, the artwork of two hunters surrounding them, decorating the walls of their first meeting. He remembers showing his wings to Dean, unfolding them in a display of trust and power. 

Flashes of memories course through him as he smites every demon. Saving Dean from Zachariah. Pinning Dean to a wall in anger. Punching him as he told Dean that he had opposed Heaven for him. Dean praying for the first time. Dean’s eyes. Dean smiling. Dean laughing, his head thrown back. Dean crying, jaw clenched. Dean’s face as he was asked to torture a demon. Dean sleeping, his face serene despite the “precaution” of having a blade beneath his pillow. Dean on the ground, beaten, bloody, broken. Dean. Dean. Dean. 

He remembers the bad parts too. Unlocking Sam’s mind. Working with Crowley. Feeling desperate and broken after Dean left to live with Lisa. Letting the Leviathan in because it seemed like the right choice. It clearly was not. Ordering his friends to their knees to honor him. The fear in Dean’s face. The message was clear. He’d messed up. Dragging himself into a lake, breathing in the water and allowing himself to fade. 

“That was beautiful, Clarence,” Meg says, pulling Cas back into the world where he’s surrounded by smited demons. 

“Cas?” Dean. Dean, who doesn’t deserve any of this. Dean. 

“I remember you.” Cas feels like throwing up, but there’s nothing in his stomach. He turns around and sees Dean’s heart. It’s in his eyes, on his lips, mapping out constellations on his skin with freckles. “I remember everything. What I did… What I became… Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“Because Sam is dying in there.” 

“Because of me! Everything! All these people… I shouldn’t be here.” Cas can’t feel his heart anymore. It’s beating too fast, stealing oxygen. 

“Cas! Cas!” Dean yells after him. 

It’s conflicting to hear the love of his life calling his name when he loves Dean more than he hates himself. There’s no place for him here. Not anymore. 

“If you remember, then you know you did the best you could at the time!” 

“Don’t defend me! Do you have any idea the death toll in Heaven? On Earth?” Cas whips around to face Dean and finally, his feet stop. “We didn’t part friends, Dean.” Nor lovers or partners. 

“So what?” He’s willing to forgive him. He’s willing to forgive all of the wrongs. For him. For his Cas. 

“I deserved to die,” Cas says, dropping the bomb. Dean swallows hard and Cas remembers his dream. Dean standing at the edge of the water screaming his name, tears streaming down his face. “Now I can’t possibly fix it. So why did I even walk out of that river?”

“Maybe to fix it.” Longing and desperation war in Dean’s voice as misery and heartbreak mingle on his face. “Wait.” Dean opens the trunk to the car they’re standing beside and picks up something that no longer qualifies as clothing. 

Cas’ heart stutters to a halt as he watches Dean hold out his folded trenchcoat. It’s stained with all of the blood and ink of the leviathan. He remembers watching Dean in his dream, crumpled on the ground as he wept into the coat. He hadn’t known he’d actually kept it. 

“Dean,” Cas hears his own voice break as he reaches out, his hands cupping Dean’s face instead of taking the coat. He presses his lips to Dean’s and feels Dean’s arms circle around him, pulling him closer. Cas moves his hand so one can tangle into Dean’s hair as he deepens the kiss, opening his mouth. Dean’s lips crash against his in response, hungry and frantic. Though his heart is beating again and it’s resumed the pace of a hummingbird, he can feel Dean’s slamming through Dean’s chest to meet his. 

“Cas,” Dean breathes into his mouth. 

“Dean,” Cas answers, kissing between their words. “I’m so sorry, Dean.” 

“I forgive you. I forgive everything. Just come back to me, Cas.” There it is. Everything that Cas had dreamed in the past four months on a silver platter, spoken between kisses in the dark. Whispered against his lips by the voice of a man that he would live and die for is the forgiveness that he doesn’t deserve and the second chance that he craves. 

“I have to earn it,” Cas says, stepping away. Dean catches his hand, their fingers linking. 

“Take this and go save him?” Dean asks, holding out the coat again. Cas takes it and slips it on over his tacky blue sweater. 

Dean pulls him back against him for one more kiss, his soft lips urgent. _I forgive you. Come back to me, Cas._

“I love you, Dean,” Cas whispers, his forehead pressed to Dean’s. 

“I love you, Cas,” Dean answers gently. 


	9. It's Better This Way

“You’re not real,” Sam repeats, his eyes rolling back in his head as he flinches. In the past few days he had been told he was supposed to be dead by multiple people including himself, but he hadn’t been told he wasn’t real. It feels strange. He knows it has nothing to do with who he is. Sam is delusional and dying all because of him. He’s not seeing Cas. He sees his nightmares come to life. 

Cas keeps his eyes up as he wheels Sam back to his room. He stops by the doors that lead to the waiting room and opens it, peeking out to check for Dean. He’s there with Meg, the guard he had abandoned when he’d handed Cas the coat rebuilt now that he sits next to the demon. 

“Dean,” Cas says softly. His head snaps up and he’s on his feet in a heartbeat. Meg doesn’t move to follow him. This is private. Even she understands that much. 

Dean follows behind Cas as they walk through the hospital. He’s silent and it weighs heavily on Cas’ shoulders. This is his fault. This dam broken so recklessly by him is hurting the two people he loves most in the world. 

“Talk to me,” Dean pleads as they make it to Sam’s room. Cas keeps his lips pressed together as he lifts Sam from the gurney despite Sam’s cringing flails. 

Cas releases him when he’s back on his bed and watches as Sam melts into his mattress, his head rolling to one side. He looks exhausted and he felt the lack of sleep when he’d attempted to heal him upon his arrival. He’d vanquished the demon, turned off the electro-shock machine, and pressed his fingers to Sam’s head. Nothing changed. Not for Sam anyway. Everything changed for Cas. 

Cas pushes the gurney out of the room and closes the door, taking his place beside Dean and sighing. Dean’s arms, crossed over his chest, untangle themselves and his hand drops into Cas’. He needs a hand to hold, someone to reassure him. 

“I can’t help him,” Cas finally says, his hand tightening on Dean’s. 

“What the hell do you mean, you  _ can’t _ ?” Dean demands. Cas can almost hear Dean’s anxious heart hammering. His entire being floods with dread as he looks on the younger Winchester, helpless and at fault. He may be forgiven, but he will never be free of the burden of his actions. He doesn’t deserve redemption. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness. He doesn’t deserve the kiss in the parking lot or the hand that stays firmly in his grasp. 

“I mean there’s nothing left to rebuild.” 

“Why not?” Dean wants an answer to every question he has. He has to be seeing the same thing as Cas. He has to be seeing the broken human, languid and weary on the bed before them. He already knows where the blame falls. Is it as easy to forgive when Sam is there in front of them both, staring into the corner of the room with that look of disbelief mingling with days old exhaustion? 

“Because it crumbled. The pieces got crushed to dust by whatever is happening inside his head right now.” 

“So you’re saying there’s nothing? He’s going to be like this until his candle blows out?”

“I’m sorry. This isn’t a problem I can make disappear and you know that.”

Cas understands what Dean had been asking him in the car. He had been asking him if his life as the healer Emmanuel, who had no memories of the Winchesters, Heaven, Hell, and everything else before he walked out of a river in Colorado, was better. He had wanted to know if Cas had been happy. Dean’s hand in his, the taste of him on his lips, is all he had craved for the past four months and he was guilt-ridden for it. With all of his transgressions laid before him, he knows he doesn’t deserve it, but he wouldn’t trade this for anything. 

He would, though. He would trade places with Sam in a heartbeat to makeup for his wrongdoings. He would give Dean back his brother to become worthy of the forgiveness, worthy of the man. He would take on all of the pain that exists in Sam’s mind to know that Dean would be able to smile again. 

Hypotheticals can be reality. The thought hits Cas like lightning to the heart. He can literally take on Sam’s pain. He can force the delusions from Sam’s mind into his own, freeing Sam. All he had to do was shift the pain from Sam into himself. 

“But I may be able to shift it.” Cas takes his hand from Dean and feels his heart break a little when they’re no longer linked. He steps away from Dean, knowing that if he stays near him a moment longer, he won’t be able to go through with it. 

“Shift?” 

“Yeah, it would get Sam back on his feet.” Cas settles himself on the bed beside Sam and feels his heart lodge in his throat. Dean would be fine. He had lived in a world where Castiel was dead for months. He lived in cobalt rooms with top-shelf whiskey and fine women. He still dreams of Cas, weeping over a trenchcoat by the water. He still clings to hope, stealing kisses under the night sky. He still overlooks all of the wrong Cas has ever done, holding his hand in the corner of the room. But, Dean will be fine. His brother will return, healthy and ready to fight by his side once more. 

“It’s better this way.” Cas swallows hard. Dean will be fine. Dean. “I’ll be fine.” 

“Wait, Cas. What’re you doing?” 

_ I love you, Dean.  _

“Now, Sam… This may hurt and if I can’t tell you again, I’m sorry I ever did this to you.” 

Pain shoots up Cas’ arm from his palm that’s placed on Sam’s head. The white lights of a barn that exist solely in the memories of two men shatter and explode behind Castiel’s eyes. He can do this. Green eyes and freckles fill his mind as agony grips him, burning through his heart and mind. His air is cut off, his lungs constricting in his chest. Blue. The Cobalt Room. Dean sitting alone at a table swirling whiskey in a glass. I spy something ethereal. I spy something green. I spy something blue. 

“Hello brother,” the hallucination on the bed says. Nightmares crawl into the edges of his vision. Dean is gone. Sam is gone. They are saved and he’s trapped in here. He wins. He is forgiven. 


End file.
